Bridging the AI ambition gap in asset management: Global survey
AI Growth in Asset Management: Best Practices for Future-Ready Firms
Asset and wealth managers agree: AI is reshaping the industry. In “The AI-powered investment firm,” a global survey of 500 executives across major investment markets, 73% said AI is critical to their firm’s future. Yet many still face barriers to scaling adoption, from slow-moving cultures to fragmented data. In a Q4 2025 webcast hosted by Grant Thornton, attendees named the absence of a clear AI strategy and implementation plan as their top challenge to successfully adopting AI.
The survey report, developed by ThoughtLab in partnership with Grant Thornton, highlights the best practices of AI leaders — those seeing real ROI from their investments across front-, middle- and back-office activities.
The survey report identified three maturity stages that respondents could fall into: 21% were leaders seeing the highest ROI, 56% were advancers making good progress and 23% were starters in the early stages of implementation.
These five best practices demonstrated by leaders offer a roadmap for firms looking to move from experimentation to execution and bring new value to their AI investments.
Align leadership around a clear AI strategy
Leading firms start with shared vision. They bring the C-suite together to define where AI fits into the business — and build a culture that empowers teams to rethink how work gets done.
Top strategy steps taken by leaders
|
Align AI strategy with technology and business strategy |
81% |
|
Ensure data, and IT infrastructure, internal processes and staff are AI-ready |
77% |
|
Develop and communicate a top-down vision for AI transformation |
59% |
|
Identify and prioritize use cases with potential high returns |
52% |
|
Create an implementation plan with timelines, milestones, and metrics |
50% |
Top culture steps taken by leaders
|
Give employees the systems and tools for AI experimentation |
67% |
|
Build ecosystem of tech and academic partners to support AI plans |
66% |
|
Measure progress against AI innovation metrics |
52% |
|
Set up an innovation lab to drive AI development |
44% |
|
Install a chief AI officer or equivalent to lead AI transformation |
32% |
Equip your workforce for an AI-enabled future
As AI reshapes roles, leaders are rethinking talent. They invest in upskilling, build AI literacy programs and prepare teams to work alongside intelligent systems — not be replaced by them.
Top talent and skills steps taken by leaders
|
Build internships and apprenticeship programs with academic institutions |
68% |
|
Develop strategies to attract, hire and retain AI-literate talent |
59% |
|
Provide ongoing AI training and learning events for employees |
57% |
|
Build AI training into onboarding processes |
49% |
|
Ensure that C-suite and business heads have good AI understanding |
49% |
|
Monitor effectiveness of AI training and recruitment programs |
46% |
Build trust with strong AI governance
Leading firms embed risk, compliance and transparency into every phase of AI adoption, setting clear guardrails to manage risks and maintain stakeholder trust. The top governance step firms are taking:
Modernize your tech foundation
Firms leading in AI success invest first in scalable, cloud-based systems and clean, connected data to ensure their infrastructure can support enterprise-wide innovation.
Top five data strategies of leaders
|
Integrate data across departments |
64% |
|
Install scalable data lakes or warehouses |
57% |
|
Establish robust security systems and processes |
56% |
|
Create systems to clean, normalize and tag data |
54% |
|
Add an AI factory to deploy AI at scale |
45% |
Reimagine operations for the future of autonomous AI
With GenAI and agentic AI evolving fast, leaders are rethinking business models by embedding AI into workflows to boost efficiency, scale insights and create new value.
How leaders plan to grow in their use of AI:
The material on this page was developed with grantthornton.com and is used here with permission.
Authors
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Shona O'Hea Shona is an Advisory partner and the head of Asset Management for Grant Thornton. She works with the firm’s international community of Asset Management professionals to identify trends and challenges facing the industry and create solutions to support our clients’ needs.View Profile -
Shane O'Neill Shane joined Grant Thornton Ireland in 2021 as Head of Technical Change within the consulting practice, leading large scale enterprise change programs in the banking sector.View Profile